Reflectors & Diffusers

Our next assignment was to experiment with light. We used reflectors and diffusers to play with the light and see how we could change the look of the photo. It was a little bit difficult to get the reflectors angled just right, but once we figured it out, it was cool to manipulate the light.

Some of the differences are just a subtle change in color, so they’re a little bit hard to see. I didn’t edit these photos at all to show how changing up the lighting affects the untouched photo.

Here are the results:

Normal Light

This is what the lighting looked like with no reflector.

Gold Reflector

Here, you can see a warmer glow to the model’s face.

Silver Reflector

I thought I wouldn’t like the silver reflector because it was kind of a cloudy day with a lot of cool tones around, but I actually think the cool, silver light looks more natural compared to the warmer glow of the gold reflector.

Since it was a cloudy day, using the diffuser didn’t make a difference in the lighting, so we went inside to test it out.

Normal

I had the model stand right under a light to show the harsh shadows light can make–especially around the eyes.

Diffuser

I used the diffuser to block those harsh shadows. Since it made the photo darker, editing would be needed to lighten up the shot.